


Dawdling In Yellow

by Silvia_Mattel



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Case Fic, Credence Barebone Needs a Hug, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Mary Lou Barebone is Her Own Warning, Pining, Protective Original Percival Graves, Smitten Original Percival Graves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22952317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvia_Mattel/pseuds/Silvia_Mattel
Summary: "You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming", that was a sentence Percival had once read, when he had been younger and foolish, wanting deep down to find somebody to love, that loved him in return.That had been before, though, before the awful things he had seen, the way his romantic side had been beaten out of him.But when those obsidian eyes locked with his mahogany ones he could sense the blossoming of something buried inside of him, the warmth that comes when the snow starts melting and spring comes along, and he wouldn't, couldn't, do anything against it.
Relationships: Credence Barebone/Original Percival Graves, Queenie Goldstein/Jacob Kowalski, Tina Goldstein/Newt Scamander
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	1. I come apart

It was the greyest morning in October when black-haired, strong-headed important man in a black trench coat came apart. 

First out of his slumber. 

Percival was respected by his subordinates and colleagues as a figure that always symbolized order, authority, punctuality, and he was lacking the latter. 

Secondly, of his home. 

He had moved, recently, to a new neighborhood, as he had bought a new, bigger (and emptier) house. But every day he regretted it more. 

The kitchen was enormous and, although Percival did cook cook acceptably some of his old mother's recipes, he was used to the much smaller working area of his old studio. His paintings and family heirlooms were chaotically through all of his three story house, thus he couldn't find anything. 

He also lacked of a knack for interior design, so it was almost certain that when his furniture was ordered it would still look like a disarray; but he could proudly state that his bedroom was the nicest room in the house, even if it was a far cry from the cleanest— those rooms were the guest rooms, still untouched by Graves— but Percival liked it the most, as it was the only place in that building he could call home, but still even it lacked something. 

_Someone_ , said a voice, suspiciously like his sister's, in the back of his head, but Percival shut that thought out immediately. He didn't need anybody. His life had been a lonely one for decades, and he wouldn't have wanted it any other way. 

Those years of loneliness, only mitigated by the feeble company of his sister and her kids, had given him the successful career he had longed for since he was a child. And if he bought that new home out of wistful thinking, out of a secret desire to have a family of his own, who would know, who would judge him? 

But now he could tell the whole street was judging him, because he was running like a racehorse into his subway station, almost jumping from stair to stair when he lowered himself down, into the underground, because he was going to arrive late to his work for the first time in, well, a lifetime. 

The third time he was came apart, though, it was unexpected. 

When he got inside of his train, which he almost lost, he perceived, more than saw, his reflexion in other people's faces. They were agitated, nervous and a big portion of them 

surely late, too. There was, though, someone who surpassed the pure anxiety that Percival's face emanated, and that caught his attention. 

The boy was in shambles. Mismatched socks with mismatched shoes, untamed hair in a hideous bowl cut, a too-tight suit and a wrinkled shirt with yellow spots on the neck of it. His eyes were open as an owl's, and his face was twisted in a scowl that expressed sheer fear. The young man looked in every direction frantically and, for a moment, his gaze and Percival's met, and what Percival saw the was beyond natural. 

The boy's eyes were blown wide, but that only displayed better the beautiful black color of his iris. The older man had never seen eyes with so much depth and beauty, and then the moment broke, when those gorgeous bottomless ravines stopped piercing his, and Percival felt a feeling of... Of having lost a piece of himself to that young boy. 

He was going to think more of it, but the boy disappeared from the train in the next station, looking even more disheveled after his weird exchange with Graves. 

Graves would be lying if he said he didn't felt let down, but he'd be completely honest when affirming that he didn't know exactly why. The boy had a pretty face, but it was highly downplayed by his clothes and hair, and although Percival could see that he reflected on the boy’s ethereal aura that Percival couldn't get enough of, even when he had only perceived it for a mere minute. 

Had it been a minute? Percival suddenly fell out of his reverie and checked his clock. It had been 20 minutes, and he was arriving to his station. 

He jumped off the train, and he realized that, if he ran, he would only be fifteen minutes late. Not the best possible scenario for someone of his rank, but he could manage an excuse. 

While he ran he has a strange idea, and he tried it, imagining that instead of running towards work he was running to the cryptic and beautiful brunet. 

He arrived six minutes late. 

"Hey Graves", exclaimed his subordinate, Abernathy, when he walked past the door, "we thought the Russians had gotten a hold of you, considering you're late." He said, jokingly, but his amused smile disappeared at Graves' irony gaze, and then he remembered. 

"I'm so sorry boss, I completely forgot, if you want to I can bring you something, a coffee and some pastries perhaps, anything to—", he was cut short when Percival entered his office and slammed the door shut behind him, right in front of Abernathy, who had followed him all the way from the entrance of their floor to said door, the door of Graves' office. 

He was relieved he didn't have to listen to the man's half-hearted and annoying apologies, and he thanked the architect of that building for the soundproof walls, as he decided that the best way to relieve all the stress that he'd felt that morning was throwing himself on the Chester he had mere inches away with a groan, that sounded more like a growl. 

He remained in the couch for a couple of minutes, rubbing his fingers over his temple, trying to digest the anxiety he hadn't felt since he was naive new agent. But he knew, deep down, that it wasn't only residual anxiety that kept him from starting his paperwork, and there was something buried deep inside of him that wanted to explore that feeling. 

_Longing_ , he was telling to himself the feeling, but his line of thought just couldn't articulate the word.

He had felt longing before, a longing of having a normal job, of saving those he had lost, of achieving the rank he now had. But he had never felt that feeling for someone. It was exhilarating, to remember his face, and specially his eyes, but it was excruciating to contemplate the fact of how they surely would never meet again. 

He was then regretting not talking to him, not following him when he hopped out of the train, and the longing became need. Need to calm down that eerie creature that had captured his waking thoughts only by setting eyes of him. 

Percival wouldn’t be honest if he said that he wasn't a romantic, at heart, but he would be brutally honest if he said he had never been that way with someone. His job was demanding and his free time scarce, and it was only some months ago, when he had been promoted, that he lived in a stable place. 

He had held himself back of any wistful thinking about any of his one night stands or short lived relationships, and now the dam he had meticulously created over the years to hold that part of himself back was breaking down. 

And all it took were a pair of ebony eyes. 

He had been lounging for twenty minutes when someone knocked on his door, and Percival got up, begrudgingly to face whatever was in tow for him behind that door. 

He was surprised to see Abernathy, now red-faced with a fire in his eyes that only meant danger, next to his new agent, a promising young woman that came highly recommended. The brown haired woman looked enraged, too, but her face turned pale when she met his gaze. Under all those feelings shone sheer determination, and if it wasn't for his well trained observation skills, Graves would have missed it. 

It was impossible to miss it, though, when she talked just before Abernathy opened his mouth. 

"Agent Abernathy interrupted my mission, director Graves.", her voice was shaky but her tone stern, and when she was finishing that line Abernathy proceeded to give his side of the story. 

"I have interrupted no mission, Director Graves, but I did stop Agent Goldstein from doing whatever the hell she was doing." Kegan Abernathy was usually a pliant and quiet man, at least on Percival’s eyes, but when angry it was of common knowledge that he became a basilisk. 

"I was taking care of a mission!" Answered Goldstein in a heartbeat, turning her whole body towards him, her expression extraordinarily expressive. 

"You were starting a crusade!" Abernathy faced her completely too, seemingly forgetting whose office they were at.

Graves stood on the same spot, unamused, waiting for the shouting match to stop, although he was curious about about said mission. 

"You ventured yourself into a mission that was assigned to you by who?" Exclaimed Abernathy, with a hint of a condescending tone at the end of his question. Agent Goldstein's reaction was a strange one for a woman of her drive and fierceness, because by the way she lowered her head, tinted with a faint but visible blush, it was obvious that she regretted not doing things differently, maybe in a more formal way, Graves guessed. 

"It was a self assigned mission, sir." She mustered out, explaining at last to graces what she had done that had caused such a commotion. 

Graves then understood why Agent Abernathy, who had been the responsible of a great deal of paperwork and responsibilities over keeping order, was so outraged. 

An agent self assigning a mission was risky for said person, but a new agent? That was unheard of. Graves knew the protocol for this kind of situations, he did, but something deep inside him, that went beyond the admiration he felt for Agent Goldstein's guts, told him that that case was important. 

He looked at the woman long and hard, and then to the man the very same way. It seemed like hours for both agents until director Graves spoke, with a low and dangerous voice. 

"Agent Goldstein, to my office, now." He ordered, and agent Goldstein looked paler than a ghost. Abernathy tried to hide a smirk, but he was unable to. He waited for orders, though, which Percival did appreciate. 

"Agent Abernathy, you can leave." He turned around with a stone cold frown, but Percival could swear that he was smiling in all his self-satisfied glory as he walked back to his cubicle, far away from Graves' point of view. 

He let Goldstein in first, closing the door behind himself. When he got in he was before a sight he wasn't expecting, Goldstein looked defiant. 

And that was when he realized it. 

This was a crusade indeed, Goldstein was willing to lose her job right there for it, and God knew how much she had worked for it. It was apparent in her whole demeanor that she was willing to lose her job for that case, and although such defiance would have annoyed him any other day, that day was a different one, so he risked being seen as weak by his young agent and asked about it. 

"What was the case?" Tina was surprised by the question, and Percival felt positively smug about it. It was, after all, a weird day, full of unexpected feelings and actions, and he might as well enjoy seeing someone who looks as flabbergasted as he looked not an hour before. 

Agent Goldstein realized that she was holding her air when she started to get dizzy, and after she breathed in subtly for air, she finally decided what to answer. 

"Will you fire me, sir?", she asked in return and, to her utter surprise, Director Graves fought back a smirk, which was there for a fraction of second. When his face was plain again he answered in a tone which left nothing to bargain. 

"No." And Tina knew in that exact moment that not even if Picquery demanded that she was removed she was going to get fired. And so she conjured and asked one final cautious question. 

"Will I be moved to another department?" _Will I go back to paperwork and back to the nine to five work schedule?_ , that was the real question and they both knew it, and Percival saw himself in that young woman, he saw the determination, the rejection of a normal lifestyle to satisfy the justice-hungry shine in her eyes, and he was sure that whatever the mission Goldstein had started was, it was one that deserved his time. 

"No." He answered again. He might have done that, in another lifetime, another place, but Goldstein was lucky enough to find him in an empathetic high, fueled by obstinate black eyes that stared at him with an almost magical twinkle, that called to him like a mermaid singing to a sailor. 

But there was no mermaid, there was only Porpentina Goldstein with him, with a stunned face but a ferocious stance, like a bird that was flying for the first time. 

The looked at each other, eye to eye, and when Tina saw nothing other than sheer sincerity she started explaining. 

"I was working on the Vector case, and when I was revising one of the suspects activities I stumbled upon something very disturbing, sir." She started, tentatively, still not believing her utter luck. "It was a little girl, with a young boy, she was crying and he was comforting her." She stopped there for a second, her gaze blank and unseeing as she stared into nothing, "then I saw them get startled by something, and the got up and started handing pamphlets. I don't know why I cared so much about them, sir," she said, silencing the questioning look of her boss, who didn't speak a word, expecting her to continue, and so she did, now staring at Graves' eyes as she spoke, "then the next day I went to the zone to interrogate a witness of the Vector case and I saw the boy. He handed me a pamphlet and his hands..." She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply and continued talking. "I've seen emaciated hands before, sir, but not like this, not in someone that could not possibly deserve it." When she saw no response from her superior she carried on, again, disturbed by the man's silence. "I closed the Vector case weeks ago, but I still thought about was happening to those two, so I started investigating, and yesterday I went to their home, sir, and it was the worst place to raise a child to ever exist. It's an extremist church, sir, and their so called mother abuses her children in every way. I arrived as a possible new devotee and I was horrified by their initiation process, so I self assigned myself to sue that cult for child abuse, human trafficking and tax evasion, and thus end it." 

She looked fierce and Percival saw himself, ten years younger, in her. He would let her, he was now certain of that, but the question was how he would let her. 

"Leave the case." Almost as soon as he said it agent Goldstein interrupted him, looking shocked. 

"Captain, with all due respect, I just told you how grave the situation is! I cannot just drop it and I ought to tell you now that, if you forbid me to keep on investigating, I will not hesitate in quitting." Her gaze bordered murderous then, and Percival wasn't surprised, if maybe a little amused. He thought of how lucky she had been again, as only that day he was going to let her use that tone on him. And the funny thing is that he wanted to be in the same mood the next day, and the next, and on the weekends too. He wanted to have that good mood for as long as he lived, he concluded. He was taking his time to answer, he realized, so he explained his last command, while mentally planning how to find the young man that had given him so much contentment in such a short stare. 

"Leave the case for a week and let me assign it to you next Monday." He looked at her in the eye, and saw how her expression morphed to a genuinely happy one. 

"So I will be able to investigate what happened?" 

"In a week, yes." Her eyes shone with hope at that, and she mouthed a thank you to Percival, and if she then she'd a stray tear after that, who was he to tell? It was pretty obvious that agent Goldstein wasn't used to people accepting her propositions, and he was glad that he had been happy that day, because that way her new case had been approved. Still, she's a smart woman and the case does seem grave, after all, Percival thought. 

"Have you thought about a partner for this investigation?" He asked, half wondering how much she had planned of that mission and half thinking, wishfully, that he could twist this into repaying a favor himself. 

"I..." Agent Goldstein looked cornered, not knowing exactly what to answer. "May I be frank, sir?" At Percival's nod she proceeded. "Anybody except Abernathy." Percival was not surprised by the least about that. He would have smirked, but he had the mind to manage to keep a stern face for his employee. 

"I'll concede that." He started, waiting for a moment to appreciate her demeanor change into a slight smile of contentment and her eres widening with wonder, positively pondering who she wanted to choose as a partner for her case. "On one condition." Her expression shifted again, and she looked curious and uneasy, trying to sort out what was that her boss wanted. He reassured her with a calm gaze, as of telling her with no words that it wasn't a difficult task he was asking for, and then he spoke again. "The brother of someone to whom I owe my life to is coming to The States to investigate on one research of his." He eyed her reactions, and he was glad to see her poker face. She was going to be a great agent, he was sure of it. "He works for the British government, of course, but he focuses on animal mistreatment issues. The issue, though, is that he has no business in The States." 

Tina still looked unreadable, and Percival waited for her to intervene, but was only met with a nonchalant hum. 

"So, if you're not against it, I'll assign him as your partner." He eyed her again, more calculating, trying to coerce out the opinion she was not giving away by the least. 

"Is he incompetent?" Was the only thing she asked after a moment of silence between the two, gazing at Percival straight in the eye, expectant, and he knew what she was referring to. Agent Goldstein came from the bottom, she was extremely talented to have come so far when growing up she had had so little, and although that wasn't Percival's case she understood her desire of working with people that had worked their way up, not with a person that was assigned a job merely for being someone's brother. And luckily for both of them Newt Scamander was so much more than that. 

"He is quite competent, for a brit, of course," he smirked at that, remembering all the bickering he used to have with Theseus, Newt's older brother, about what national intelligence was better, "of course he's no James Bond, he's more of a researcher than an agent, but am excellent agent still." Tina's face had shifted, just a little, some hope started to break through and he was glad. 

He was going to proceed to tell her to leave his office and start working on her new case, but she asked a question, so fastly that it looked like had been holding the words for hours in her mouth, and that she had just set them free, like a lively bird that had been trapped in a cage and that had flown away as fast as it could after been released. "What makes him indicate for this case, sir?" She closed her eyes, sheer embarrassment hidden badly, but he decided to just answer the question, ignoring the slip his young agent had just had. 

He remembered having those, too, when he was young and full of questions, and he also knew that what she was feeling in that moment was punishing her more than he could ever achieve to do by reprimanding her. Before opening his mouth he looked at her with faint amusement shining in his eyes, just enough for her to notice and to make it positive that she wouldn't let her curiosity take over her in a while. 

"For what you've told me, your case is a delicate one," he began, choosing his wording carefully and speaking slowly, "it has children, religion and I'm sure that it's got it's fair share of brainwashing, right?" Agent Goldstein nodded, her gaze lost in the carpet, partly because of her embarrassment and partly because she was processing every word, interested in how her partner was right for her case. "Agent Scamander is maybe the most empathetic worker of the British intelligence, he knows how to calm raging bulls and how to tame fierce rhinoceros, but he also knows how to treat the most fearsome mockingbirds and to nurse back to health the sneakiest salamanders. He is not the best at peer to peer communication," at that agent Goldstein seemed to stiffen up, "but he does have a knack for treating people with the care he thinks they deserve. Especially when it comes to children." at the last couple of sentences agent Goldstein relaxed greatly but in a way that was almost impossible to perceive to the common eye. And, because Percival wasn't common in any way, he smiled. It was a small smile and Goldstein had already turned around, but he was too happy to continue smiling just for the sake of it. 

He was alone, again, so he could focus again on his main focus now: finding the man that had made him happier with just a glance than he had ever been with days of chatting and nights if passion with any other person. 

Percival knew it was risky, to put his hopes so up for someone he didn't know at all, but still he had a feeling it wasn't misguided. 

He had a strong belief of that there was a time and place for everything. There was a time and place for traveling across the world, for seeing all the wonders and darkness the world has to offer, for days and nights of mindless studying and even for murder, and for him there hadn't been a better time and place for falling in love. 

Finally he had a stable home, a well paying job and a heart that was satiated of the self-discovery trip that had been his life when he was younger. Now the only thing he wished for was that the young man he has met in the subway would accept his love. 

He was being unfair, in a way, but he couldn't help so. He had gone the last fifteen years working himself to exhaustion and meanwhile everyone he knew had settled down, finding someone with whom spend their lives with. He couldn't stop himself of thinking of his sister, Genevieve, who he had always criticized for marrying young. But ten years later, he envied her. 

Her husband and her had flourished in their fields of work, they still loved each other and they had three children who they loved dearly. He wanted that, he wanted that kind of domestic bliss neither him or his sister had experienced while growing up. But he knew better than beating himself up over something he had no control over. His career was a dangerous one, in which any kind of sentimental partner would be threatened because of him. Still, he couldn't help his want. 

He envisioned the man's dark eyes, his penetrating gaze and his lithe figure waiting for him in his too wide, too empty house, looking at him with the same want he felt for him. He ought to find him, get to know him, for he knew that that was the only cure for the longing he felt and, maybe, he could make that man come apart, too. 

He was bordering on creepy, he knew that, but the temptation to think about the other was overwhelming, he felt like Pylades when he found Orestes, like Patroclus when he met Achilles, and although he hadn’t yet got to know him, he knew that his admiration for him could only grow. 

Percival regretted the two years he spent in Athens, when he pretended to be a classics professor in order to take down a human trafficking network. It all went smoothly, if not a little longer than anticipated, but after those years he found what he had never faced before: beauty. He felt its utter softness caress something deep inside him when reading classic tragedies, and after those wonderful moments he was never the same. 

He was hopelessly romantic, not looking for love, but with a want of a deep human connection, which sometimes made him cynical, for he was yet to find someone to open up to. He looked into his notepad. He had his next date with his psychiatrist in one week, and he knew she would want him to write the thoughts he was having in that very instant down, but he didn’t find himself capable of doing so, of restricting the absolute potential that this young man was into paper, having to articulate what were the conclusions he had gotten from their first encounter. To write down the lies, until proven true or false, he had created in his imagination about the beautiful man that was rushing around the subway. 

Percival wouldn’t concentrate in the next hour, he knew it, so he decided to stand up, lock his office door and sit down, spreading his body on his massive chair, stretching himself and putting his hands behind his neck, reminiscing the obsidian black eyes that had locked with his that very morning.


	2. Movement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When his train passed the fateful station of Atlantic Terminal he looked towards every door he could manage, as he had been doing for the last weeks despite himself, and he found what he thought was impossible. He found hope.
> 
> A young man with a hideous haircut and too small clothes had not only entered his train, but also his wagon and, to his absolute dismay, he was giving Percival a clear view of his back, and only his back. Percival wanted it to not be him, but he so desperately needed him to be the young man that had infested his thoughts every moment of the past weeks.

It had been two weeks since he had last seen that disheveled young man, and Percival was starting to feel positively concerned about his well being. 

It was idiotic to feel that way for an utter stranger, he knew so, but still he couldn't forget the rush of adrenaline he had felt when staring into those deep dark brown eyes.

It had been so feeble and brief, but he felt so enraptured by it. He wondered what he could have done, if he had been given those weeks with the wonderful and stressed out young man, if he could have taken care of that beautiful man’s wellbeing.

He knew he would have invited him to dinner, that way they could get to know each other better, and then maybe they would walk together in Central Park, arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder, eyes to eyes. Maybe it would even end up in a goodnight’s kiss, and whenever Graves thought of it he got a wistful, yet embarrassed, look on him.

He was fantasizing about a man that had close to nothing to do with him, and still Percival felt like a teenager with a crush. 

He imagined how the weeks would have been like with that handsome stranger, contemplating ferry rides, walks hand in hand and even a goddamned trip to Europe. So much could be done in a couple of weeks, and yet the only thing Percival did was daydream about the man that had him so besotted, either thinking of him when awake or dreaming of his eyes when asleep. 

Other than that, in the real world, he overviewed the new mission Agent Goldstein was starting with Newt Scamander with a rigorousness he usually reserved to cases of international security. But the volatility of the two agents he was keeping an eye on deserved every bit of strictness he was pouring in supervising them.

They were so apparently different that Percival was mildly surprised to see that, for once, Agent Goldstein was fitting perfectly with her partner. 

They became two peas in a pod, rarely seen in different rooms, always within sight of the other. He wondered sometimes about if their compatibility was only intellectual, or if it was becoming personal. When they were staying after hours, looking at the blackboard with clues about the Barebone case, he could sometimes advert the longing in Tina’s gaze directed to the young Scamander, in one of those rare moments in which he wasn’t looking at her with the utmost wonder.

The two of them had really done a lot in the week that they had been working together, starting wit their odd first meeting after Agent Goldstein almost arrested Scamander for trafficking of rare species (of which he was most certainly _not_ guilty, because he was _safely_ bringing a perfectly _docile_ red wolf into his natural habitat), and discovering right after that said almost-prisoner was to be her partner in her breakthrough case, to Abernathy’s endless amusement. 

Things could only go uphill after that, and they did. The pair of them somehow became the best of friends in what was only six days, and Percival secretly questioned the motive of such a fast relationship development. 

After their first day together he thought it was because Scamander was trying to make a move on Goldstein the Younger, their receptionist, for he seemed to border on being inhumanly awkward around Agent Goldstein. After one fast call with Theseus and the noticeable smitten look that Newton got any time Agent Goldstein stood her ground in her daily fights with Abernathy, Percival came to the conclusion that those ulterior motives from Scamander couldn’t be what seemed off. 

He also concluded that they suffered from an acute case of young love.

He couldn’t really dive into what was unsettling about the pair, though, for he made a point on supervising every case that was done on his floor, reading all the paperwork that was produced so no mistake was existent when they got archived. He also did weekly reports for Madam Picquery, the Attorney General herself— who wasn't particularly fond of Percival’s choice of having a local child abuse case as an all out investigation by the FBI— and he never failed to craft reports so well written that they were almost Dickens. So there was not much spare time for Graves, and between figuring out his agent’s endeavors or building castles in Spain about his mysterious man (and how _stunning_ he’d look under the Spanish sun, he found himself thinking), the decision was easy. 

And in all honesty, he didn’t mind that they were behaving suspiciously as long as Agent Goldstein continued finding clue after clue, after going out everyday in intricate plans with Scamander to investigate, leading him to wherever the case would conduct them.

Graves was very pleased with how fast the investigation was moving, and he read the reports Agent Goldstein sent him avidly and with a hint of pride. Sometimes he couldn’t help himself, leaving his office with any menial excuse to go help the two agents, feeling a familiar rush after connecting clues with them. 

He sometimes missed the thrill of solving cases and going to the streets to catch criminals, but long term missions and the danger that came within was long gone for him.

Like the young and unforgettable man he couldn’t stop thinking about.

Although many days had passed without seeing him at all, Percival could still remember vividly his gaze, his ruffled hair and his stance, alert and jumpy. He wondered about how that man would be if he was calm, maybe laying down, looking well rested and happy.

That image plagued his reveries, making him not notice the weird noises that sometimes came from under Scamander's temporary desk, or the constant nervous glares that Scamander and Goldstein shot each other, disappearing swiftly afterwards with Scamander’s enormous suitcase.

Maybe he wasn’t doing his work as efficiently as he used to, or maybe he was just being a nutcase, thinking all day about a beautiful man he didn’t even know, but he felt something wrong and apathetic inside of his chest, missing without missing, yearning without yearning.

His swifts were starting to become longer, for he needed more time to do the same tasks he would have ended rapidly only two weeks prior. He found himself unable to concentrate, frowning more often, and only finding comfort in the casual phone calls with his sister, who told him about everything his nephew and nieces were up to and how she couldn’t wait for her family’s visit to his new house, which Percival both loathed and waited for with eagerness. His sister’s kids were pretty much the light of his life, and he was proud of every one of them as if they were his own.

He remembered the last time he saw them, in his niece’s birthday, and he realized that, after his odd encounter with the other man, he seemed to revisit that memory more than ever.

“Don’t you date, Percy?”, had asked Genevieve, his sister, in the kitchen of her nice suburban home on North Hills, while giving a final touch to the champ, inspecting smugly the impeccable texture of the mashed potatoes. She turned her gaze towards her brother, who looked unamused, although somehow embarrassed. “You know, it never hurts, once in a while…” She conveyed the sentence with understanding, but her eyes looked entertained at her younger brother’s turmoil. Taking his silence as an answer she kept on talking. “Not ever? You know, Percy, our mother would have a heart attack if she heard such thing.” At that Percival turned towards her, standing tall and looking stern, but softening at Genevieve’s playful demeanor.

“Well, she’d be in the ICU if she merely _smelt_ that atrocity you insist on calling scones.” He retorted, a small smirk making its way into his face, turning graciously from his now harrowed sister to take the moussaka out of the oven, looking over his shoulder at the hyper little girl that was noisily running towards him.

“Uncle Percy, Uncle Percy!” Amarantha screamed as she approached her uncle, who was placing the moussaka on the dining room table, that was already covered with their tablecloth, silverware, vases and plates. “Can I have some before lunch? Please, please, please my mom won’t know!” Her mother definitely knew, for she could hear them from the next door kitchen, but Amarantha was only turning nine, and she didn’t keep in mind how loudly she was speaking, even if it was a crucial factor in her quest for getting some of her father’s masterfully made dish before anyone else.

Percival knew that Genevieve was testing him, and he felt tempted to give his little princess of a niece some moussaka just because. But he knew better, thus Amarantha was answered with an instant negative. She could not be convinced, though, so she kept bedeviling him, waiting for him to give up to her begging. 

What she didn’t know was that Percival wasn’t a high ranking FBI official for nothing, so he endured her torture until he was on the verge of losing his sanity, which was when he told her to finish setting the table by putting the napkins under each knife, and promised her moussaka afterwards.

That bought him time, and when his little blonde niece had finished, the dishes were already on the table, and the only ones yet to come to the room were his nephew and brother-in-law. 

His youngest niece, who was finishing her picture book on the corner, looked up to Percival quizzically and asked away what she was ruminating for some time at that point. 

“Uncle Percy, what’s dating?” To that her uncle froze, bashfully turning towards her.

“Well Irene, that’s a good question…” He stared at Genevieve, expecting his answer to be completed by her, but she just quirked an eyebrow at him, as if daring him to respond.

“It’s gross.” Said Percival, his nephew, stomping into the room, followed by a concerned Galen. “Adults do it all the time and it’s _so fucking gross_.”

“Language!” Galen reprimanded him, and Perce turned around defiantly towards his stepfather, who retorted his gaze with a tired one, pleading him to calm down.

Genevieve cleared her throat and stared at every member of her family individually, being answered by each one of them sitting down on their seats, with Percival sitting down next to a very angry Perce and in front of a wide eyed and curious Irene.

“Mommy said that you don’t date, Uncle Percy.” At that Galen stopped serving the moussaka to stare at Percival, whose ears were starting to turn red. “Is it because it’s fucking gross?” At that the whole table looked mortified, with the exception of Perce, who looked as annoyed as a thirteen year old boy ought to always look like in a family gathering. Afterwards Genevieve proceeded to lecture her children, firstly addressing Perce on manners and then explaining to Irene how to differentiate between what is or isn’t proper to be asked. Amarantha looked smug while she ate her food, to her uncle’s immense and silent amusement.

The food was abundant, far too much on Galen’s opinion, whose delicious moussaka hadn’t been finished, as his Irish family had favored the champ and the bickering.

After cleaning the table and saving the leftovers, they moved to the living room, where Percival stayed for half an hour. There he made small talk with Galen, exchanged snarky remarks with his sister, answered his niece’s never-ending questions and coerced little laughs from his nephew, all while stroking his niece’s blonde curls. 

The resemblance Amarantha had with his brother-in-law was uncanny, with olive skin, bright brown eyes and honey colored hair, while Irene had an appearance more similar to his mother, her black hair flowing straight like a cascade and her big dark eyes always inquisitive, but with her father’s tanned skin nonetheless. 

Percival then looked at his namesake, his heart breaking a bit at how alike the two of them were. Physically they were almost the same, if not for his nephew’s smile, subtle and dimpled, in contrast to his own wolfish smile. Both smiles were rare, as they were also so very similar in character. It wasn’t the first time that he had seen Perce as almost his son, for he had raised him before Galen had come along, and he sometimes wondered, when looking at his nephew, how would have his own kid been like. 

Would they have been lively like Amarantha? Smart like Irene? Or maybe his splitting image, like Perce. 

His eyes became distant, his hands stopped caressing his blonde niece’s hair, and then he shook his head slightly. He stood up, saying his goodbyes under Genevieve’s worried gaze, escaping his yearning for being able to come back home to his own family, and an hour later he was greeted by the absolute loneliness he found there.

Percival felt himself heavier after that memory, looking as shaken as he had looked when leaving Amarantha’s birthday. 

Abernathy seemed to notice, promptly offering his boss a glass of water, to which Percival agreed, which left him alone in a corridor, looking at the chalkboard with the Barebone case. In a moment of lucidness he noticed that something was off on the connections made. 

In the middle there was a woman, Mary Lou Barebone, whose photo was attached to a couple of children’s photos, like a very little blonde child and a redheaded teenager. There were also group pictures in front of a run down church in which they appeared too. On a corner he could see the picture they used on non identified suspects, or victims, with the words young boy underneath. He was puzzled, for he hadn’t been identified either as a suspect, nor a victim, and had yet to be tied in any way with the case. 

He wondered if that boy was the missing puzzle piece that solved the case, maybe a government worker that had made possible all of the abuse Barebone had perpetuated, which wasn’t recorded in any official delation.

He was sure about one thing, and that was that what that Barebone woman was doing couldn’t be done alone, so he kept on examining the photos on the board, noticing how many of the kids tied as possible victims had individual photos taken for children penitentiaries. There had to be someone moving the threads behind the scenes, for there was no way that a woman whose majority of children had at least gone to court still had more kids coming into her orphanage.

He read the notes about her, learning about the Second Salemers, who had the cryptical purpose of “ _Establishing the final witch hunt, taking that inhuman race to an end_.”, which sounded positively maniacal, while also disturbingly solemn. 

Mary Lou Barebone was definitely getting inside help for her delirious beliefs, but from whom? She was the leader of a cult, he reminded himself, so anybody who had been part of one before and that worked for the NYC police department, social services, Family Court or even national level Intelligence Agencies was a suspect. 

He didn’t remember passing any solicitation for the access to the information on FBI workers who had had previous recorded participation in cults, regardless for a mission or for personal reasons, so he looked for a post-it and wrote it for Agent Goldstein to read when she came back with Scamander, so she would consider making said request. 

He trusted her criteria to believe in Percival’s thoughts about an inside helper, and he decided to add “cult of any beliefs, can be about concepts and not deities”, in a extra note on her desk, for he had a feeling that Barebone’s reinterpretation of the Bible was not the thread that would lead them to answers with their investigation. It still seemed important, though, and Graves didn’t want to discredit that, so while he walked towards his office to have lunch he sent an email to Agent Goldstein, asking her for a report on the stances Barebone had on Christianity for the Second Salemers by the next day.

He remained in his office for the rest of the day after that, waiting for Agent Goldstein to knock on his door, but it never happened. He was drowning in paperwork, trying to forget Mary Lou Barebone’s frigid demeanor, Perce’s small chuckles at something he said and the wonderful man’s bottomless eyes when his assistant came into the office. 

Percival had almost forgotten how to do anything other than sign and read reports, so for him it was a nice surprise to see his seemingly invisible, yet indispensable, PA.

“Sir,”, he started, looking uncertain, “it’s quite late, there’s only a couple of janitors and a secretary left on the floor and I have finished your schedule for tomorrow. I know it’s not my place to ask to go home, I know I have to leave after you leave, but still…” Percy looked more surprised at each word, and at the last sentence he looked downright outraged, which seemed to scare Mr. Hardesty to the bone, as his voice died down, leaving him speechless in front of his apparently very angry boss.

“Richard, you may be my Personal Assistant, and don’t take me wrong, I appreciate your work greatly,”, Percival started, looking at Mr. Hardesty dead in the eye, which made the other man gulp slightly and— if Percival had been in a better mood— he might had even smirked at that, but he felt quite severe, thus he kept his impassible frowning expression, “but please, I don’t need you to take on the extra hours I’m doing. If you finished, you finished. Please do not wait for me to end my paperwork before leaving ever again, just give me a short notice.” He tried to sound as understanding as he could, but he felt so numb that he sounded just slightly more human than an AI.

“I… Thank you sir, I appreciate it very much, today’s been pretty stressing and I… Well…” He looked uncertain to tell Percival what he really wanted, and it took every last ounce of self control from Percival to not cock an eyebrow. “My wife’s pregnant.” Mr. Hardesty blurted it out, looking like he feared that he’d be fired for saying it. “It’s being a risky pregnancy, and I wanted to know if you could maybe give me a week off, to take care of her.” He looked at Graves as if he held his fate with his two bare hands in that moment, and he might as well had. 

He was making quite the drama out of it, Percival thought to himself, but dammit if he hadn’t been just as terrified when his sister had been pregnant. He couldn’t imagine what Mr. Hardesty was feeling for his wife, who was carrying his child during a difficult pregnancy, and his gaze softened. It was subtle, but he knew that Richard had noticed it too.

“Of course you can, Richard, I don’t have the data right now, but if I remember correctly you have more than ten days of paid leave collected, plus your paternity leave. Is that right?” He then cocked an eyebrow, for the way Mr. Hardesty corrected the number of days accumulated, muttering out eleven, was almost as funny as his mortified face after speaking said word. “Well then it’s settled, have a nice week, and send my regards to your wife.” He said, flashing a brief smile to his PA, in a quite useless attempt to calm his employee.

“Thank you, sir, I’ll tell her so, sir.” Graves had never seen Mr. Hardesty happier, and he was so glad for him that he didn’t correct him on the formalities, which he usually would find over formal in meetings like the one that was taking place.

Before Mr. Hardesty left the room Graves noticed he didn’t ask what was maybe the most important part regarding himself in the new arrangement they were having in the following laboral week. “Is my week going to be calm, or should I get a temporary PA for the time being?” At that his assistant turned to face him, and nodded in recognition of the question, as if also pondering what had been asked.

“You shouldn’t need one, not for this week at least. You only have one meeting with Madam Picquery that hasn’t got an specific date nor hour, and both matters are usually set between the two of you. So no, you shouldn’t need an assistant for the duration of the week.” He paused, as if doubting what he was going to say next. “I’ll put any event or important deadline in your Google Calendar, though, so don’t worry, I won’t be completely gone.” At that Percival felt something within himself relax and Richard, who had noticed his boss’ relieved expression, smirked for a second, for there’s not many times in which Personal Assistants get as much recognition as what Graves had given him just by winding down his concerned gaze.

“Well, it’s good to know that.”Graves said that looking at Mr. Hardesty with a slight upturn of his lips, too. “Good luck with the kid, by the way, when it comes you’ll be wishing you had two years of paid leave.” The memories that evoked of Perce as a baby at that had Graves looking unmistakably happy, wistfully thinking about a time in which his nephew wasn’t just a couple of inches shorter than him, but fitted into his arms.

“Kids, actually.” Said Mr. Hardesty, and the terror, merged with anticipation, that that sentence brought to his face was something Percival knew for a fact only expectant parents could manage to articulate.

“Oh.” They both looked at each other, the feeling between them lighter after that last intervention, letting them bask in the short-lived feeling of being high on happiness that came with the thought of two very wanted lives coming to exist. “Double the joy, then.” He didn’t think he should add anything else, for they were employer and employee, after all, and the situation was going from ecstatic to awkward by the second. “Well, see you in a week, Mr. Hardesty.”

“See you in a week, Mr. Graves.” And with that said, Richard turned away again, almost rushing out of the room. Percival allowed himself to smile at that, but his smile banished when he saw the hour, it was half past eleven, and he still had half an hour to get back home. 

It was moments like those that he wished he still lived in an apartment in Manhattan, but then he remembered the stranger he wouldn’t have met if he hadn't moved to Park Slope and he felt instantly better.

“Time to leave.” He muttered to himself, turning off his computer, locking his drawers, revising that his paperwork was properly catalogued and ordered for it to be submitted the next day and finally putting on his trench coat and scarf, already fearing the Autumn frost on the street, which only got colder that late at night.

He got into his train station while he answered some last emails before completely losing himself to the rush and relaxing coexistence with other troubled and exhausted people that was the New York City Subway. When his train passed the fateful station of Atlantic Terminal he looked towards every door he could manage, as he had been doing for the last couple of weeks despite himself, and he found what he thought was impossible. He found hope.

A young man with a hideous haircut and too small clothes had not only entered his train, but also his wagon and, to his absolute dismay, he was giving Percival a clear view of his back, and only his back. Percival wanted it to not be him, but he so desperately needed him to be the young man that had infested his thoughts every moment of the past weeks.

He only had two stations left, a mere six minutes, with who might be his favorite stranger, and he didn't know what to do, how to react. He felt his legs moving, as if walking towards that perfect man was the most normal thing to do, and then suddenly his world stopped moving. Twice.

First, his wagon stopped, making him collide against the metal bar behind him, and simultaneously the young man turned towards him, not only crossing gazes with him, but also falling in his direction, being propelled by the violent halt of the train. 

Percival moved from the metal bar in what seemed like a millisecond and months to catch the falling young man and, to his utter delight, he could stare once again into the dark brown eyes that had plagued him day and night, having the man that possessed that intense gaze in his arms. It was maybe one of the best moments of his life.

Then it all went to black. 

And then, a scream. 

A soul piercing scream that was coming from his arms, along with a very distressed whole body trembling, which bordered in shaking. Graves did the only thing he thought reasonable at the moment, and he hugged the man closer to his chest, muttering calming nothings into his hair, feeling as if doing that wasn’t the most intimate he had been with anyone in years, because at the moment it felt like the most natural thing to do.

He heard a female monotone voice warning them about the difficulties that the train was facing, and asking them to get out of said train, to which the man in Percival’s arms responded by pushing into himself and starting to silently cry in desperation, putting his hands next to Percival’s heart and wetting his collarbone.

Graves was expecting to wake up at any moment, for that instant was both better than his wildest dreams and worse than his worst nightmares. Having the man he hadn't stopped thinking about for two weeks finally in his arms was a gift from above, but to have said perfect man cry on him was an anathema to everything good in the world, since Percival knew that the deep eyes of the man in his arms should only ever have teardrops born of pure happiness on them.

“We have to get out of the wagon! C’mon, we gotta be fast, guys!” A teenager, who looked on her way to a party, exclaimed, apparently taking the role of a leader in the burlesque of an adventure they were having. And as he carried the now less of a stranger on his side, shielding him from the outside world, Percival felt like he was living the best adventure he had ever experienced.

“Come on, we can do this, don’t worry. We’ll be on the outside in a minute.” He kept repeating to the wonderful stranger in his arms, who had been hyperventilating since they jumped off their train wagon. He spoke comfortingly to the other man while he followed the group of people that were on that train, who were being led by the machinist herself, a woman in her fifties that could make anyone hurry up with only one pointed glare. Percival received said glare when he was helping the stranger climb his way on top of the train station, afterwards climbing as quickly as he could, for the woman had looked at him for the second time, as if telling him to move faster out of the station.

Percival was glad when he was finally on the station, with the other man having found his figure and, to his surprise, leaning in to touch him, absolutely scared and irradiating pure panic out of him. When Percival hugged him again, now with both of them half lying on the ground, he felt a sudden change of bearing in the man who was huddling into his chest once again, sensing how his shoulders relaxed into the tight hug he was being engulfed in.

Percival could have spent the rest of his life like that, but he was unlucky, because after spending what surely had been minutes embracing he heard a strong voice talk over the megaphones of the station them, and the rest of the train, were in.

“Please exit the Bergen Street Train Station. Do not panic, this is not a risk situation, everyone will get out of the station safely. Follow Mrs. McDormand out. Please, if anyone is harmed, proceed to go to the ambulance that will be next to the Bergen Train Station in a couple of minutes.” The voice was monotone, starkly contrasting with the chaos that was unfolding around them.

The young beauty in his arms tensed up again, and Percival released him slightly, giving him room to breathe, to get away if he wanted to and, to his delight, he didn’t leave the column they were resting against.

He opened his eyes, half lidded, and slowly turned his head towards Percival’s, looking at him in the eye. And Percival knew, when those black holes absorbed his gaze, monopolizing it, that he was so, so gone for that man.

Who are you, he wanted to ask, what are you, he wanted to know, but it was too forward, he knew it, and he didn’t want to break the moment between the two of them. What were the odds, he thought to himself, filled with disbelief and a cautious amount of giddiness, what were the mere chances of meeting that sublime man again, then having the train where they saw each other again damaged, and finally ending up in a station that was ten minutes away from his house.

It all seemed too good to be true, and if Graves hadn’t been that bewitched, he might have wondered if luck had been a factor in that fateful reunion at all. 

One thing was certain, though, Percival had wanted to see the young man again more than he had ever desired anything.

Had the other man thought about him, too? Percival felt so filled to the brim with hope that he might as well be floating in that moment, and if the pining had been mutual he surely was flying above the clouds in that moment, because he’d be closer to heaven than he will ever be.

 _So dramatic_ , he thought to himself, but he couldn’t be helped, when having such a pair of extraordinary eyes locked with his. When he partly came back to reality he realized that the station was far emptier, and he dared to break the connection he had with the man in his arms to stare at the exit of the station. He swiftly looked back at the stranger that enraptured him, and decided to ask away.

“Should we leave?” At that the stranger looked surprised, as if he was listening to his voice for the first time, but both of them knew that it was far from true. His eyes went from completely calm to slightly stressed, which annoyed Percival to no end, but he didn’t let his chagrin translate to his expression, keeping it warm and understanding, eager for an answer. Eager to hear the other man’s voice.

“I… I don’t know.” The man in his arms answered, and Percival marveled over the softness of his timbre and the warm feeling he got when he spoke. “I live far away from here, mister, I don’t know how I’ll get home, I mean, I’m not— _I’m not_ asking anything of you, of course! But oh, I’ll have to walk for an hour, it’s not like I haven’t done that before, but…”, Percival, although feeling as if he had been blessed to hear the man’s voice, noticed he was growing anxious the longer he talked, so he decided to cut his rambling by gazing his hand in a gesture of support, which appeared to be a win-win situation. Until the other man moved.

He moved out of his reach, and Percival felt heartbroken, but before the other man tried to stand up, looking confused and a bit upset, he managed to splat out something.

“I live nearby! And I have a car, I could drive you. If you wanted to”. The other man’s confusion only grew, his expression growing in confusion at each sentence Percival blurted out, but he sat down again, so it looked like not all was lost. “It’s a ten minutes walk, no bother at all, really.” He tried to further persuade the other man, because he’d burn his house down to ashes to have the honor of spending another couple of minutes with the man in front of him.

“What’s in for you?” The stranger asked him, after a long pause, with no venom, but a vast amount of doubt, in his voice.

“I just want to help you.” Percival said in a beat, without hesitation, and in hindsight it sounded creepy, so he tried to fix it. “It’s late and I wouldn’t want to see a fellow New Yorker robbed.” He said those words without thinking them through, and he regretted it, because if there was seemed creepy before, he had managed to worsen it even further, sounding downright dumb.

“Robbed?” he heard the other man ask, and when he looked at him he felt a rush of boldness come into his system.

“Yes. I don't want to disturb you, bit I work for law enforcement and I know for a fact that robberies are at its peak in New York at night. Even more so at this time of the year, being so close to Halloween…” He looked at the other man, who looked scared at that, and he almost felt bad for being the one who provoked said expression, so he kept on talking, trying to make it better. “I swear I won’t do anything, I’ll give you pepper spray and all if you want to.” He didn’t really think about what he was saying, but it seemed to pick the other man’s attention.

“You would?” He asked, looking at him in mild disbelief. At Percival’s startled look he decided spoke again. “You’d give me your pepper spray?” They started at each other, and Percival chuckled, to the other’s amazement.

“Of course I’ll give you my pepper spray! Wouldn’t want to come off as some sort of criminal that will take advantage of young men on the subway.” Percival had a slight smile at that, finally he was being clear with that beautiful young man, he knew he felt attracted towards the other, and he knew he had been pining for the other for two weeks, but they were both living in New York, and he expected nothing but a basic self-preservation instinct from the man in front of him, who looked like he was seriously considering the offer. “I want to help you, really.” Graves didn’t know where that came from, and for a second he regretted muttering that out, but when he at the other’s face, finding that he was bashfully smiling, he felt like the luckiest man on earth.

The smile was gone as fast as it came, but Percival treasured it, and it could have been a wonderful moment if the machinist hadn't come towards them, exclaiming to the to of them to get out of the station, at last. Both men looked at each other and, without saying a word, they came out of the station together, arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder and, momentarily, eyes to eyes. 

They surfaced the ground, standing under the streetlights and moonlight, and with that lighting the young man’s features looked like something out of a dream, his pupils embed into the older man’s ebony orbs, and when their fingers brushed when the pepper spray was handed Percival felt like there was no place he’d rather be.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo it took me SUPER long to update, but here it is. This chapter was kind of difficult to write, I felt like it was never correctly done and I also did so much world building! I think that I could even handle myself in NY's subway and all after all the research I've done of it.
> 
> I've been quarantined for almost a month and I've been doing so much homework :((. Now I've got a two weeks break and I'll try to update faster, but my studies are always the top priority, so please be patient.
> 
> Also I knowww that this chapter hardly has any dialogue, but I swear that next one will have a faster pace (or at least I hope I'll be able to pull it off :')).
> 
> As always kudos and comments are greatly appreciated, and thank you for reading!!


	3. soleil, soleil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What should I call you?”
> 
> “I…” The other seemed to hesitate on answering, with an expression that conveyed an internal dilemma. “My name is Aurelius.” He breathed out, and his rosy cheeks had disappeared, his face having acquired a ghostly white appearance, like a vision under the pale moonlight and brash streetlights. 
> 
> “Aurelius. Sounds nice.” But it doesn’t feel right, he thought.

They were walking down the road towards his home, with Percival leading the way and the stranger following him, silent and clenching the pepper spray that he had been offered in his hand. Percival sometimes looked back at him, to keep track of his pace, and to observe the charming blush on the young man’s cheeks because of the cold.

It had felt like hours since their last interaction, although it had only been three minutes., and it was the unbearable silence that was making time pass so slowly, but he didn’t want the other to feel uncomfortable, so he waited for him to start a conversation, with no success.

The minutes went on, and no one was talking yet, the only communication between them being the quick glances that Percival would send his way, and the surprised look that the younger man got every time he noticed said eyes on him.

It was all quiet until the young man sneezed, covering his nose, and Percival decided to mumble an immediate _bless you_. He felt stupid for his shyness, but he found that he had plenty of chances of saying those two words, for the slim man behind him had started sneezing like there was no tomorrow.

He wasn’t being specially loud, but Percival was only thirty inches away from him, so he noticed every sneeze, every shiver, from the other. At the fourth sneeze Graves decided that he wouldn’t ignore it any longer, and he turned around, facing Credence, swiftly taking off his thick trench coat. Obsidian black eyes widened at that, and the young man stopped in his tracks, standing taller than before and holding up the pepper spray tighter.

It was in that very moment that Percival felt like the biggest fool in New York, as he realized that he had stopped walking and started undressing in an empty street, with a man that held pepper spray and that had met him mere minutes ago. Some explanations were in place, which was a terrible fact, for Percival found that wasn’t able to articulate anything coherent with those eyes on him.

“What are you doing?” The other man asked, albeit it sounded more like a warning than a question.

“I’m offering you my coat.” Percival ended up answering, while he held it out for the other man to take. The stranger's face scrunched up, as if meditating his next move in a chess game, and after a couple of seconds he outstretched his hand, hesitantly taking the trench coat.

He put it on, and it fitted his body well, although it was too big in the sides for his lean figure. Percival blushed a bit, wondering if the younger man would be able to smell his cologne on the coat’s neck, and if he’d like it. 

The svelte man in front of him looked redder than before, and Graves was further concerned by his health, but before he could query anything the raven haired man talked.

“I feel much better, than you, Mister…” They were staring into each other’s eyes again, and Percival was so lost in his eyes that he almost didn’t discern the inquiring tone in which that sentence had ended.

“Mr. Graves.” He completed, his eyes looking at the other intently, as if prompting him for his own name.

“Mister Graves.” He repeated, instead, as if savouring each letter of it on his tongue, the action enrapturing the man he was referring to.

“You can call me Percival.” He said without thinking it twice, blushing faintly. He wanted to hear him say his name, but he also wanted to know his. “What should I call you?”

“I…” The other seemed to hesitate on answering, with an expression that conveyed an internal dilemma. “My name is Aurelius.” He breathed out, and his rosy cheeks had disappeared, his face having acquired a ghostly white appearance, like a vision under the pale moonlight and brash streetlights. 

“Aurelius. Sounds nice.” _But it doesn’t feel right_ , he thought. It certainly sounded like a fake name, and when he uttered it out the other man, Aurelius, seemed to get even paler, so he decided not to question further much on whether it was his true name or not.

“We should walk, sir, it’s getting colder.” Aurelius looked at him agitatedly, expecting him to turn around and start walking again, and so he did, worried about the man behind him, but very decided to get him to somewhere warm.

“We’re close.” Said Percival minutes later, crossing the street with Aurelius on his heels, who answered with a silent nod, acknowledging him.

When they finally got to his place Percival walked over to his house to fetch his car keys, and he turned around to the other man, who still looked pale and even more crunched over than when they had gotten out of Bergen Street.

“Are you feeling unwell?” The other shook his head. “Do you want to get inside, while I look for my keys?” At that Aurelius lifted his head, staring cryptically at Percival, visibly pondering his options. He shook his head once more, lowering his gaze afterwards.

Percival walked up to his house, turning around while he opened his door. 

“Stay right there, ok? I’ll be back in a second.” He entered his house, picking his heys from his hall’s key holder as fast as he could, and locking his door behind him in record time.

When he came outside Aurelius was still in the very place where he had been before, just as crouched down as before, but trembling slightly. 

He walked over to the other man, touching his shoulder, being greeted with a flinch. He retreated his hand instantly, but he still carried himself closer to the younger man, just to make sure that he would hear him. Or so he told himself.

“Let’s get in the car, alright?” He waited for the other man to look up, but he only nodded again, looking at his feet. He walked towards his red car with Aurelius following him, only getting a quick glance of his face when he opened the co-pilot door for him, which made him look up at Percival for a second with a surprised expression.

“Where to?” He asked after he got into the driver's seat, turning on the car and fastly turning up the heat.

“Ocean Avenue, 630.” Aurelius muttered hastily, even though he seemed quite more relaxed with the increasing warmth inside of the vehicle.

“Not very far, then.” Aurelius nodded again, looking outside the window, his breath steaming the glass, creating an staggering contrast between the dark grey crystal and the soft pink hue of his lips. Percival had to remind himself of what he was doing, which definitely wasn’t getting wonderstruck with the beauty of the man next to him. 

He suddenly felt terrible, realizing that he was extolling the man he was supposed to simply drive home. He blushed as he got on the road, trying to discard any thought about Aurelius by mentally revising his knowledge of Brooklyn’s streets, finally deciding on driving through Prospect Park to get to the young man’s house. 

When they entered the Grand Army Plaza the traffic was lively, and Percival lost himself in driving, turning up the radio to block out the horns of other cars.

“Can we turn it off?” Whispered Aurelius a minute later, and Percival decided that it would be safe to look at him. He looked overwhelmed and Percival was about to say yes just so he could make him look happier, but then he realized that some background music was definitely needed.

“What about listening to another station?” He asked back, gently, yearning for any soothing sound that would persuade him from asking away any foolish question to the man next to him.

Aurelius turned his head to look at Percival, studying him, and he could see from his peripheral vision that he was blushing. He didn’t say a word, but he leaned over to the radio, exploring through different types of music and live broadcasts. He finally stopped in a radio station that had a soft voice announcing a song, or so it seemed, for the woman was speaking in French, which Percival didn’t speak further than what his work had required of him through the years.

He spared another glance at Aurelius, who looked more tranquil than he had ever looked before, resting his head softly on the glass window, with the juniper green trees merging with the dark shade of his hair, his demeanor calm and his eyes half lidded.

The music was melodic, the silky voice of a young woman filling the car like an enchantment that allayed both of them. Percival absentmindedly listened to the song’s lyrics, which despaired over winter and the deep sorrow that came with it, and maybe any other day he would have resonated with them, but when having the man of his dreams sitting mere inches from him he couldn’t be further from seasonal sadness.

The song kept them quiet, the fuzzy ambient created in the car only growing in heat and volume when the crescendo of the melody came, lulling Percival and making Aurelius feel a need to turn around, which he did, taking in the image of the older man looking peaceful.

Percival could feel those eyes on him, and he decided not comment on it, preferring to bask in the feeling of warmth that was flooding his body.

“We’re close to your home, aren’t we?” He commented when another song started playing, in which a man with a gentle voice sang in a slow but happy tune with a Canadian accent, whose song had Percival smirking for it’s hopelessly romantic lyrics.

“Yes, we are.” Aurelius retorted that with a blank tone, and Percival noticed some weariness within it. He turned around and the image he gladly took in was that of the other’s beautiful eyes, that were staring at him with, dare he say, wistfulness?

“What was the number again?” Percival remembered it, but he wanted to stretch the last moments that he had left with the wonderful stranger that plagued his dreams since the day he had laid eyes on him.

“Six hundred fifty, sir.” Was the answer, spoken in an exceptionally slow manner, as if hesitantly, his eyes widening a second later, when he realized his mistake. “Thirty! I meant six hundred thirty! Sorry, Mr. Graves.” He finished, with an embarrassed ring to his voice, saying his name on a bashful tone.

“Is it this one?” He stopped next to his building, grinning when he saw the image of his ride companion blushing.

He waited for him to jump off the car, but to his surprise the other wasn’t moving. Their eyes locked once more, and Percival felt the same fluttering sensation on his stomach that he had felt outside of the Bergen Street Station.

The depthless pools of petroleum that were his irises captured him once more and, just for a moment, Percival contemplated begging Aurelius to stay with him, to accept going on dates together, to let him learn everything about him, but he knew it was a ludicrous wish, for the much younger and much handsomer man in his car would surely have plenty of better things to do than to spend time with him.

“I…” The man started to talk, maintaining their eye contact, being cut off by Percival’s mobile phone, that had started ringing loudly on his pocket, to his owner’s utter disheartment. They looked at each other and Percival considered not answering, but the loud sound had taken him out of his previously hazy state of mind was his PA’s personal ringtone.

“I really have to answer, I’m sorry.” He muttered, and he felt beyond sorry, he felt dreadful.

“Yeah, sure.” The younger man seemed to be saying that more to himself than anything, and he looked incredibly awkward after realizing he had said that out loud, which faintly amused Percival.

“Hello Mr. Hardesty.” He started speaking while he still stared at Credence, although the other man had broken off their eye contact for good, lowering his head to the right.

“Mr. Graves, sir, are you alright?” Asked Mr. Hardesty, apparently agitated.

“Why wouldn't I be alright?” He deadpanned, seriously contemplating to scold his Personal Assistant to call him for small talk in such an unique moment.

“There was an accident in your subway line, sir, half an hour ago, were you in it?” He sounded even more frantic after that vague answer, and it was in that moment that Percival realized that he was simply worried about his well being, but even if in any other moment it would have been heartwarming, in that exact occasion it felt entirely unnecessary.

“Yes.” Percival answered and, after a loaded silence, hell broke loose.

“Sir! Were you injured? Are you in the hospital? Do you have your social security number with you? God knows you never have it, shit, that a was a dumb question. Give me just a second I know I have it somewhere, because heaven knows you never-“ He was cut by his boss, whose expression and temper was growing was grimmer by the second.

“Mr Hardesty I am not in the hospital, please, calm down,” he could hear an audible sigh for that. “I appreciate you concern, but I don’t need anything, no, not even to schedule a doctor’s appointment, I’m fine.”

“Well let me reasonably doubt so, sir, the train you were in _exploded_ , for the love of god, don’t you even want me to appoint an extra session with your psychiatrist this week?” Percival didn’t know about the explosion, and he paled at that. He was genuinely shocked by that, trying to grasp that what had looked like a simple malfunctioning that had made him meet Aurelius had actually been an attack that could have killed them both.

“An explosion, you say?” The image of Aurelius alone in that wagon, seconds away from a deathly explosion and looking as scared as he had when the train had stopped made Percival feel petrified with sheer fear, mindlessly reaching to touch him, to make sure that he was definitely real and safe inside of his car, but he stopped his hand before he grazed the other man’s arm.

“Yes, sir, didn't you know? It’s all over the news, the line’s going to be closed for months because of it and you know how New Yorkers get over their subway not working.” He told Percival, finally getting said man out of his too vivid imagination.

“It’s going to get closed for months? How many?” He was answered with a long suffering sigh that every New Yorker that didn’t use the commute every time they were asked about it.

“A couple of months, sir, the mayor’s going to give out the official data tomorrow at ten, but I’d say that it’ll be out of service for two months. Maybe three.” He answered, his tone as flat as it always was when he was informing Percival of anything.

The only thing that Percival wanted to do in that moment was to hang up, say goodbye to Aurelius and get home as fast as possible to meditate about the gut feeling he got in that moment. He was to make some calls, of that he was certain, because he wanted to be first person to know who was behind the explosion. First he needed to hang up with his PA though, and he knew that there was only one way to effectively do so.

“Please, Mr. Hardesty, if you could contact Dr. Mosaku for an extra appointment this week it’d be greatly appreciated.” He didn’t really want to ask his psychiatrist for an extra session, but he knew that Hardesty would only comply if he was asked to organize something that was health-related.

“Of course sir, I’ll do it in a second, and please take care of yourself.” If he had been there Percival was sure he’d have a menacing expression on his face, as if chastising his boss for getting in trouble, which made him smile slightly.

“Thank you, Mr. Hardesty.” He said, warmly, as he stared at Credence again, who was still looking at the floor, the only difference being his rather melancholic stance, and he felt the sudden urge to add something to his farewell. “Send my regards to your wife, too.” That picked the younger man’s attention, who slowly lifted his face with an unreadable expression.

“Of course, sir, that’s very kind of you.” He sounded quite more cheerful at the mere mention of his wife, but the next thing he said had a completely different tone, one of genuine concern and curiosity. “Wait, sir, you haven’t said where you are, are you at ho-“, his sentence was cut by a swift answer from Graves.

“I’m fine.” He said in a rush, wanting the conversation to be over as soon as possible, but when he noticed the side glance Aurelius was giving him he couldn’t resist to add in a much softer voice. “Believe me, I’m perfectly fine.”

“If you say so, sir...” He still sounded confused, but he seemed to believe him. “Good night, sir.” He hung up, and Percival returned his whole attention the the man next to him.

“Sorry for that, it was my PA.” He excused himself while he lowered his phone to his lap.

“Your what?” The younger man looked looked genuinely surprised at that term.

“My Personal Assistant.” He explained, feeling curious about how the other man didn’t know what a PA was, maybe he just wasn’t familiar with office work, he supposed. That made him wonder about Aurelius’ profession, and suddenly he felt the familiar urge to ask the other man everything about him.

“Your secretary?” He asked again, not sounding judgemental but, oddly enough, hurt.

“Kind of, yeah, but don’t tell him I called him that.” He ended the sentence with a smirk, remembering the murderous look in Mr. Hardesty’s face each time Abernathy would call him that.

“But isn’t it his job, though? Why should he be ashamed of it?” His eyes looked lost, and Percival knew all too well that although his body was at his hand's reach, his mind was far away, unwillingly remembering so

“Oh no, he loves his job, really! Somehow putting things in order comes naturally to him.” He waited for a moment to see a reaction out of the young man, but his answer didn’t seem to take Aurelius out of his reverie, so he decided to take a more direct approach. “Why did you ask, though?”

“I don’t know, sir.” Percival sensed that wasn’t the truth, so he gave him a reassuring look, silently asking him to elaborate. “I…” he seemed hesitant to talk, but looking at Percival he seemed to find what made him decide on it. “I sometimes feel like more humble jobs are deemed as worthless.” Of all the things Percival thought he was going to hear, that wasn’t it.

“Really? Why?” He couldn’t remember the last time he had asked something feeling as clueless as he felt in that second, and he briefly marveled in that feeling of pure curiosity for the sake of it, before directing all of his attention to the other man, waiting eagerly for his answer.

“I… I don’t want to annoy you with a rant about my life, sir.” Aurelius was looking down again, muffling the end of the sentence he had just said.

“Believe me, you wouldn’t.” And he hadn’t been that sinecere in years. The willowy man next to him seemed to look loss nervous at that, and he looked up, into the rearview mirror, in a way in which he looked at Percival’s face, trying to read his expressions without the other man knowing.

Percival noticed, but didn’t say a word, and he softened his gaze even more so, praying that it would help to prompt the man next to him to talk about his thoughts, his history.

“I finished my career last year and, well, the only job I could find was as a barista in a café, and everybody always tells me it was a stupid investment because now I’m working a second class citizen kind of job, and, and I…” He didn’t finish, his eyes getting glossy, and every fiber in Percival’s body ached to extend his had to hold his, to comfort him in any way. But that was out of place, he knew it, and because of that he decided to support him with just words.

“Your job is not worthless, Aurelius,” said man cringed a bit when hearing that name, and Percival decided not to comment on it, “everyone that tells you that educating yourself is worthless just because you’re not making a four-digits salary straight out of college is just jealous of you or insecure about their own money and knowledge. Don’t let them get you down, they’re not worth it,” the other man seemed hesitant at his little pep talk, so he decided to add a little more truth in it for good measure, “but you are, you’re worth a lot.”

“You don’t know me.” He scoffed, clearly not believing his words, but looking a little bit flustered too, while a little gratified smile made his way into his face.

“But I’d like to.” He admitted before he could even start thinking, and that sentence quietened the two of them.

“Give me your phone?” Aurelius asked after a long silence had settled between them. Percival didn’t want to feel let down, he really didn’t, but he hadn’t expected the other man to rob him after such a pleasant car ride and heartfelt conversation. 

It had been foolish of him to get a complete stranger into his car, after all, and he should have know, because if his job had teached him how much of a bad decision it was to do so. Even when the stranger was as wonderful as Aurelius was. _Specially if he’s that wonderful_ , he told himself. He didn’t have it in him to fight the other man, so he gave in to his wishes.

“Ok.” He said, and he couldn’t help the forlorn ring that adorned his voice when he extended his phone to the other man, who appeared to be a little confused at the gesture, but took the phone nonetheless. 

“Can you unlock it?” He said after turning it on, and Percival was extremely glad that it was his personal phone they were going to take the SIM card out, because the conversations with his sister could be lost with little consequences, the ones with Seraphina on his work phone were a completely different story, though.

“Of course.” He sounded positively gloomy then, and it seemed to make Aurelius doubt himself when he got Percival’s phone back, but his countenance changed when he looked at the screen, morphing into a determined expression. He started typing away on his phone, Percival guessed that surely reformatting it. He waited for him to get out of the car, but he was talking too long, apparently just staring at the screen, as if waiting for a signal.

The song they was sounding on the background stopped and Credence appeared to snap out of his trance, looking up to the car radio, then to Percival and then back to the phone. He shut his eyes, tightly, and unbuckled his seat belt.

“Thank you for the ride, Mr. Graves.” He said, quick as an arrow, and he all but threw his phone back at him, getting out of the car in a flash.

Percival was dumbfounded, to say the least, as he saw the other man get into his building with a quick step and, he realized, with his trench coat still on. _So he was a thief, after all_ , he thought to himself, gently chuckling. He finally looked down at his phone, still surprised by the turn of events, and he became even more startled when he realized that it was open on a new contact.

 _Credence, from the subway_ , he read, feeling his heart flutter in his chest. Under the phone number he could see that something else had been written in the email section of the contact. But it was not an email address, he realized, it was so much more than that. It was hope.

Percival started driving again, heading for his home, and although he got there safely, he later berated himself for his reckless driving, because instead of thinking about the other cars on the road or the traffic lights, he thought about the message Aurelius, _Credence_ , had left on his contact. _Want to carpool?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's back.
> 
> No but really, sorry taking so long to update, this chapter was supposed to be finished two weeks ago, but it took me longer to edit this little shit than to write it.
> 
> Also, this was supposed to be longer, but tbh It did't fit well with next chapter, so I've split what I was going to upload as chapter three in two chapters. Hope it's not too confusing lmao.
> 
> Basically this fic will be one chapter longer, and don't worry about not having much investigating going on in this chapter, next one will have much mystery, very investigating.
> 
> As always kudos and comments always make my day! And thanks for reading🖤


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